These are from last month in Amsterdam…still alternating pics from the US visit with pics I took mostly before I returned. If you’re curious about the seasons in various places, try to open a photo and look at the title (if you’re on a phone, you can probably do that by tapping the image but it depends what version of the blog you’re looking at – full or “lite”), because I’m mostly leaving the dates in for now 🙂
You might not recognize it with this very different lighting and format, but you’ve seen this church & canal view before :-). It’s close to work, so I pass it often but only photograph it every now and then…
Some explanations may be in order for beloved members of my viewing community who see these posts only as email alerts or on your phones, where the categories & tags I always apply to posts are less visible to you: I was traveling around the US a bit, from the 23rd of March until last Sunday, the 3rd of April. I spent some time with family in Pittsburgh & Oberlin (apologies to Oberlin friends whom I didn’t connect with during my 24 hours in town), then out to California to touch base. If your viewing style for the blog doesn’t show you the categories & tags, then for example you’d think yesterday’s beautiful tulip photo was taken here in Amsterdam – logical, for many reasons – but in fact both that and the earlier orchid photos were taken at Pittsburgh’s lovely Phipps Conservatory, whose spring flower show is a lovely taste of spring in a place where spring does in fact arrive later than it seems to here in A’dam. It’ll get even more confusing the next week or two for anyone who doesn’t select the option to see the full blog view, because I still have lovely flower photos from the Phipps trip, maybe still one or two from California, and tomorrow I’m going on a walk through the blooming tulip fields you’ve seen on postcards and tourist sites from the Netherlands. It’s a safe bet I’ll take even more tulip photos then, so you might consider checking the full site for the category and tag, if you’re curious what you’re seeing. That said: this photo is clearly and undisputedly Amsterdam, on a rainy morning as I headed to work. I will be showing you both NL and US photos in the weeks ahead :-).
I’m reasonably confident these are white storks, and I believe their presence on the platform also answers questions my cousin Maria (hi, Maria!) asked about similar platforms which appeared in photographs from other posts late last year. I can’t state with certainty that all such platforms are intended for or solely used by storks, but I expect they’re intended for and used more by storks than any other type of bird. You and I wondered if it was maybe ospreys, and I’m afraid I’ve not yet gotten a book that’ll tell me which birds ply the forests and waterways of this corner of Europe so I’m not even sure if ospreys are found here – haven’t seen any myself, yet, but I’ve not really been looking yet. I am confident storks do, and this is the first pair I’ve seen. They really do clack their bills and communicate with each other a lot! If the left-hand photo below, you can sort of make out this platform in the middle near the top of the photo.
(so much world, so little time....) 